When the hippies from Vancouver started chanting ‘Calgary sucks’ there wasn’t much you could do. The Flames suck, it’s not even funny anymore. The Calgary Flames don’t even put up a fight to make rivalries interesting.
For me at least, tonight was the first time I looked at a team that has truly given up, and the first time I don’t have a problem blowing it ALL up. Nothing is working, everyone looks pathetic.
Iginla was invisible, Tanguay was non-existent, Oli Jokinen was unfortunately himself which blows since the team doesnt need two of him, Stajan was worse than bad (if you were wondering he’s this year’s Jokinen–another product of the pathetic Sutter regime), Bourque has given up, Morrison is old, Backlund showed flashes of brilliance, Sarich is slow, Regehr is slow, Giordano was Gio, Bouwmeester is massive waste of 7 million dollars, Kipper was hung out to dry, Glencross was alive, Kotalik would be passable if he gave 100%, Hagman sat and the Flames were not better off, Kostopoulos was a typical forth liner, same with Jackman, and Moss chilled out on the wing of the third line. The rest were mediocre at best.
Yea, nothing worth saving here. If you could build around Kipper and iginla that be nice, but the problem is nobody will take a bunch of overpriced and grossly under performing hockey players (we can only assume they play ‘hockey’ since we’re paying them millions although they don’t have the heart to show up game in and game out.)
It had been disappointing particularly after the Flames had been mentally prepared. Besides giving up three unanswered goals against their Northwestern division rivals was not at all what fans. On the bright side though, they had 43 shots on goal which demonstrated their offensive efforts to score…. and at least they were not shut out….
Of note though, it was disconcerting to see a repeated outcome and hopefully this trend will end. Will 2011 be better than 2010?